City. It was the first part built and settled, the first cradle of the
great trade of England. More than this, it continued to be the thief
centre of trade; its wharves received the imports and exports; its
warehouses behind stored them; its streets which ran up the sloping
ground grew with the growth of the trade; new streets continually
sprang up until villas and gardens were gradually built over and the
whole area was covered; but all sprang in the first place from Thames
Street; everything grew out of the trade carried on along the river.
We are going to walk through all the five riverside wards belonging to
this street. There are one or two things to note in advance, if only
to show how this quarter remained the most populous and the most busy
part of London. The City of London has eighty companies. Forty of
these have--or had--Halls of their own. Out of the forty Halls no
fewer than twenty-two belong to these five wards, while one company,
the Fishmongers', had at one time six Halls, or places of meeting, in
and about Thames Street. Again, the City of London formerly had about
150 churches. Along the river, that is, in and about Thames Street
alone, there were at least twenty-four, or one-sixth of the whole
number. Lastly, to show the estimation in which this part was held,
out of the great houses formerly belonging to the King and nobles,
those of Castle Baynard, Cold Harbour, the Erber, Tower Royal, and the
King's Wardrobe belong to Thames Street, while the names of Beaumont,
Scrope, Derby, Worcester, Burleigh, Suffolk, and Arundell connect
houses in the five wards of Thames Street with noble families, in the
days when knights and nobles rode along the street, side by side with
the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City.
In Thames Street are the ancient markets of Billingsgate and
Queenhithe. The former has been a market and a port for more than a
thousand years. Customs and tolls were paid here in the time of King
Ethelred the Second, that is, in the year 979. The exclusive sale of
fish here is comparatively modern, that is, it is not three hundred
years old. As for Queenhithe it is still more ancient than
Billingsgate. Its earliest name was Edred Hithe, that is, Edred's
wharf. It was given by King Stephen to the Convent of the Holy
Trinity. It returned, however, to the Crown, and was given by King
Henry III. to the Queen Eleanor, whence it was called the Queen's Bank
or Queenhithe. On the west side of Queenhithe lived Sir Richard
Gresham, father of Sir Thomas Gresham, in a great house that had
belonged to the Earls and Dukes of Norfolk.
The splendid building of the Custom House on the south side is the
fifth Custom House that has been put up on the same spot. The first
was built by one John Churchman, Sheriff in the year 1385; the next in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth--it was furnished with high-pitched
gables and a water gate, this was burned down in the Great Fire. Wren
built the third, which was burned down in 1718; one Ripley built the
fourth, which was also burned down in 1814. The present building was
designed by David Laing and cost nearly half a million.
Until quite recently a little narrow and dirty passage to the river,
known as Coldharbour Lane, commemorated the site of a great Palace,
known as the Cold Harbour, which stood here overlooking the river with
many gables. It was already standing in the reign of Edward II. It
belonged successively to Sir John Poultney; to John Holland, Duke of
Exeter--that Duke who was buried in St. Katherine's Hospital; to Henry
V., who lived here for a brief period when Prince of Wales; to Richard
III.; to the College of Heralds; and to Henry VIII. Finally, it was
burned in the Great Fire, but during the last hundred years of its
life the old Palace fell into decay and was let out in tenements to
poor people. The City Brewery now stands on the site of Cold Harbour.
Close beside this great house--the site itself now entirely covered by
the railway--was the Steelyard. This was the centre of the German
trade; here the merchants of the Hanseatic League were permitted to
dwell and to store the goods which they imported. The history of the
German merchants in London is a very important chapter in that of
London. They came here in the year 1250, they formed a fraternity of
their own, living together, by Royal permission, in a kind of college,
with a great and stately hall, wharves, quays, and square courts. The
building is represented, before it was burned down in the Great Fire,
as picturesque, with many gables crowded together like the whole of
London. Their trade was extremely valuable to them; they imported
Rhenish wines, grain of all kinds, cordage and cables, pitch, tar,
flax, deal timber, linen fabrics, wax, steel, and many other things.
They obtained concession after concession until practically they
enjoyed a monopoly. For this they had to pay certain tolls or duties.
They were made, for instance, to maintain one of the City gates. They
were compelled to live together in their own quarters. Their monopoly
lasted for 300 years, during which the London merchants, especially
the Association called Merchant Adventurers, who belonged principally
to the Mercers' Company, continued to besiege the Sovereign with
petitions and complaints. It was not until the reign of Queen
Elizabeth that they were finally turned out and expelled the Kingdom.
Their house and grounds were converted into a store-house for the
Royal Navy. At the same time the old Navy Office, which had formerly
stood in Mark Lane, was transferred to the suppressed college and
chapel belonging to All Hallows, Barking, in Seething Lane, where you
may still see, if you go to look for them, the old stone pillars of
the gates and the old courtyard which was originally the court of the
college, then the court of the Navy Office, and now the court of the
warehouse belonging to the London Docks. As for the unfortunate
Steelyard, that, as I said, is now completely covered by the Cannon
Street Railway. As you walk under the railway arch you may now look
southward and say, 'Here for 300 years lived the Hanseatic
merchants--here the fraternity had their warehouses, their exchange,
their great Hall. Here the German porters loaded and cleared the
ships, the German clerks took notes and kept accounts, and the German
merchants bought and sold.' They ventured not far from their own
place; the Londoners have never loved foreigners or the sound of an
unknown language; they lived here making money as fast as they could
and then going home to Lubeck, Bremen, or Hamburg, others coming to
take their place.
On Dowgate Hill was another famous old house called the Erber--which
is, I suppose, the same word as Harbour. It belonged at successive
periods to Lord Scroope, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Salisbury,
and to George, Duke of Clarence. This house, too, perished in the
Fire. In this street Sir Francis Drake lived, and here are now three
Companies' Halls. Close by, on Laurence Poultney Hill, lived Dr.
William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood.
In Suffolk Lane the Earls of Suffolk had a great house, and here,
before they moved to Charter House, stood the Merchant Taylors'
School. Three Companies had their Halls on the riverside--the
Watermen's at the bottom of Cold Harbour Lane; the Dyers' at the
bottom of Angel Alley; and the Vintners' which still stands close to
Southwark Bridge.
Nearly at the end of the street was Baynard's Castle. You may still
see the name on the gate of a wharf, and it also gives its name to the
ward. This was the western fortress of the City, just as the Tower was
the eastern; but with this difference, that Castle Baynard belonged to
the City during the troubled time when the Crown and the City were
constantly in conflict. The Tower, on the other hand, always belonged
to the Crown. Baynard's Castle belonged, in fact, to the FitzWalters,
hereditary barons of the City. One of their functions was at the
outbreak of a war to appear at the west door of St. Paul's, armed and
mounted, with twenty attendants, there to receive from the Lord Mayor
the banner of the City, a horse worth £20, and £20 in money. Finally,
the castle became, I do not know how, Crown property. It was burned to
the ground, but rebuilt by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Within this
castle the Duke of Buckingham offered the Crown to Richard III., and
here the Privy Council proclaimed Queen Mary. The castle afterwards
fell into the hands of the Earls of Shrewsbury. It was destroyed in
the Great Fire. It consisted of two courts: the south front of the
buildings faced the river, the north front, with the principal
entrance, was in Thames Street.
In more ancient times there stood a tower west of Baynard's Castle
called Montfichet, but of this building very few memorials remain.
Again, there is said to have been a palace on Addle Hill, built by
Athelstan. The Wardrobe was another great house acquired by King
Edward III., close to the church still called St. Andrew's by the
Wardrobe. The memory of this house is still kept up by that very
interesting little square, which looks exactly like a place in a
southern French town, called Wardrobe Place. One of the court offices
was that of Master of the Wardrobe. In old days he resided in this
house and actually did take care of the King's clothes. The Queen's
wardrobe, on the other hand, was kept in the other royal house, called
Tower Royal, the house still surviving in the street so-called. This
was formerly King Stephen's palace. In the year 1331 it was granted by
the King to his Queen Philippa for her wardrobe. It was then called
'La Réal,' without the addition of the word 'tower,' and the meaning
and origin of the name are unknown. The palace stood in the parish of
St. Thomas Apostle, the church of which was not rebuilt after the
Fire; but the name of the church survives in a small fragment of the
street so-called.
There were, therefore, in this small bit of London, at least four
royal palaces, besides the great houses of the nobles that I have
enumerated. Half the City companies had their Halls here; and even to
this day there are standing here and there one or two of the solid
houses built by the merchants in the narrow streets north of Thames
Street for their private residences. As late as the beginning of the
present century the house now called the 'Shades,' close to the Swan
Stairs, London Bridge, was built for his own town house by Lord Mayor
Garratt, who laid the foundation stone of London Bridge. Of the old
merchants' houses, rich with carved woodwork, built with black timber
round courts and gardens, not one now remains in the City. But there
are one or two remaining in the old inns of Southwark and the Old Bell
Inn, Holborn, Yet the last great house built in the City, the Mansion
House, was itself originally built round a court.
* * * * *
You may, if you try, reconstruct Thames Street as it was before the
Fire. Its breadth was exactly the same as at present. Eight stately
churches stood, each with its own burial-ground, along the street. The
palace of Baynard reared its gables on the right as you entered the
street from the west. Lower down, on the same side, stood the great
House of Cold Harbour, also gabled. The low-gabled warehouses stood
round Queenhithe and Billingsgate; the Custom House was thronged with
those who came to pay their tolls and clear their dues; the broad
court of the Steelyard--covered with boxes, bales, and casks, some
exposed, some under sheds--stretched southward, behind its three great
gates. On the river-side stood its stately Hall. The Halls of the
Companies, great and noble houses, proclaimed the wealth and power of
the merchants. On the north side stood the merchants' houses built
round their gardens. In those days they had no country houses, and
they wanted none. They could carry their falcons out into the fields
which began on the other side of the City wall, or across the river in
the low-lying lands of Bermondsey and Redriffe. The street was already
crammed and thronged with porters, carts, and wheelbarrows; it was
full of noise; there were sailors and merchants from foreign parts.
Already the Levantine was here, lithe and supple, black of eye, ready
of tongue, quick with his dagger; and the Italian, passionate and
eager; and the Spaniard, the Fleming, the Frenchman, and the Dutchman.
All nations were here, as now, but they were then kept on board their
ships or in their own quarters by night. The great merchants walked up
and down, conversing, heedless of the noise, to which their ears were
so accustomed as to be deaf to them. The merchants had reason to be
grave. Always there were wars and rumours of wars; always some pirate
from French shores was attacking their ships; their latest venture was
too often overdue--the ship had to run the gauntlet of the Algerian
galleys, and no one could tell what might have happened; there was
plague at Antwerp--it might be lurking in the bales lying on the quay
before them; there was civil war brewing; fortune is fickle--he who
was rich yesterday may be a beggar to-morrow. Merchants, in those
days, did well to be grave.
I have considered, so far, some of the great houses standing in or
along this historic street. Let us now note a few of the churches.
All Hallows, Barking, the first walking from the east, commemorates in
its name the fact that it formerly belonged to the great convent of
Barking in Essex, the gateway of which still stands at the entrance to
the churchyard. This church escaped the Fire. Here was buried the poet
Surrey, Bishop Fisher, and Archbishop Laud.
In the church of St. Magnus, London Bridge, the remains of Miles
Coverdale, the translator of the Bible, rest: they were removed here
from the Church of St. Bartholomew when it was pulled down to make
more room for the Bank of England. This church has perhaps the finest
tower, lantern, and steeple of all the City churches, in front is a
small court planted with trees, whose foliage is strangely refreshing
in early summer down in this dark place almost below the approach to
the bridge. The church itself is fine but not very interesting. I have
sometimes counted as many as ten present at the Sunday morning
service.
St. Michael's, Tower Royal, is Whittington's church. In this parish he
lived, though a house was long shown as his in Hart Street; here he
died; in this church he was buried--behind this church stood his
College of the Holy Spirit with its bedesmen and its ecclesiastical
staff. If we pass the church and look in at the gateway on the north,
we shall notice unmistakable signs of an ancient collegiate foundation
in the disposition of the modern houses. Here is now the Mercers'
School. In the church there is no adequate monument to the memory of
London's greatest merchant--the man who did so much for the City which
made him so rich, who royally entertained the King and Queen in his
own house, and at the close of the banquet burned before their eyes
the royal bond for £60,000, worth in modern money at least £600,000. I
never think of Whittington without remembering a certain verse in the
Book of Proverbs, 'Blessed is he who is diligent in his business, for
he shall stand before Kings.'
St. Nicolas Cole Abbey is, within, a kind of gilded drawing-room.
There is gilt everywhere, gilt and wood-carving; and on Sunday
morning, thanks to the strange taste of the Vicar, who likes to dress
himself up in scarlet and green, and to have a boy making a smell with
a swinging pot, there are sometimes more than the customary ten for a
congregation.
Of St. Mary Somerset only the tower remains. Why they pulled down this
church, why they pulled down St. Michael's Queenhithe, or St. Nicolas
Olave, or St. Mary Magdalen, all in this part of London, passeth man's
understanding. If you want to find out what these churches were like,
you may consult the book by Britton and Le Keux on London Churches.
They are represented in a collection of steel engravings drawn after
the fashion of eighty years ago, so as to bring out the strong points
with great softening of unpleasant details.
Many of the churches were not rebuilt after the Fire. This shows that
by the year 1666 this part of London was already beginning to be
occupied more by warehouses than by private dwellings. Among them were
St. Andrew Hubberd, St. Benet Sherehog, St. Leonard, Eastcheap, All
Hallows the Less, Holy Trinity, St. Martin Vintry, St. Laurence
Poultney, St. Botolph Billingsgate, St. Thomas Apostle, St. Mary
Mounthaut, St. Peter's, St. Gregory's by St Paul, and St. Anne's
Blackfriars--thirteen in all.
At St. Benet's Church--where Fielding was married--you may now hear
the service in the Welsh language, just as in Wellclose Square you may
hear it in Swedish. In Endell Street, Holborn, you may hear it in
French, and in Palestine Place, Hackney, you may hear it in Hebrew.
Certain spaces on old maps of London are coloured green to show where
stood certain churchyards. In Thames Street the churchyard of All
Hallows the Less still stands; in Queen Street that of St. Thomas
Apostle, in Laurence Poultney Hill that of St. Laurence Poultney, a
very large and well-kept churchyard; St. Dunstan's, All Hallows,
Barking, St. Stephen's, Wallbrook all keep their churchyards still.
That of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, stands retired behind the houses. But
those of St. Nicolas Cole Abbey, St. Mary Somerset, St. Botolph's, and
St. Mary Magdalen, formerly large and crowded churchyards, still kept
sacred in the year 1720, and, indeed, until further interments were
forbidden in the year 1845, are now quite built over and forgotten.
What has become of the churchyards of St. Michael Royal, St. Michael
Queenhithe, St. Benet, St. George, St. Leonard Eastcheap, and St.
James's Garlickhithe? Alas! no one knows. The tombstones are taken
away, the ground has been dug up, the coffin-wood burned, the bones
dispersed, and of all the thousands, the tens of thousands, of
citizens buried there--old and young, rich and poor, Lord Mayors,
aldermen, merchants, clerks, craftsmen, and servants--the dust of all
is scattered abroad, the names of all are as much forgotten as if they
never lived. But they have lived, and if you seek their monument--look
around. It is in the greatness, the wealth, the dignity of the modern
City, that these ancient citizens live again. Life is a long united
chain with links that cannot be separated; the story of humanity is
unbroken; it will go on continuous and continued until the Creator's
great purpose is fulfilled, and the drama of Man complete.
In one or two of these churches all the churchyard left is a square
yard or two at the back of the church. In one of these tiny
enclosures--I forget which now--I found that of all the headstones and
tombs which had once adorned this now sadly diminished and attenuated
acre, there was left but one. It was a tombstone in memory of an
infant, aged eight months. Out of all the people buried here, who had
lived long and been held in honour, and thought that their memory
would last for many generations--perhaps as long as that of
Whittington or Gresham--only the name of this one baby left!
It was in the vaults of St. James's Garlickhithe, that they found,
before the place was bricked up and left to be disturbed no more, many
bodies in a state of perfect preservation--mummies. One of these has
been taken out and set up in a cupboard in the outer chapel. He is
decently guarded by a door kept locked, and is neatly framed in glass.
You can see him by special application to the pew-opener, who holds a
candle and points out his beauties. Perhaps in all the City churches
there is no other object quite so curious as this old nameless mummy.
He was once, it may be, Lord Mayor--a good many Lord Mayors have been
buried in this church--or, perhaps, he was a Sheriff, and wore a
splendid chain; or he may have been the poorest and most miserable
wretch of his time. It matters not; he has escaped the dust--he is a
mummy. Somehow he contrives to look superior, as if he was conscious
of the fact and proud of it; he cannot smile, or nod, or wink, but he
can look superior.
One more church and one more scene, and I have done.